“Speech” refers to the sounds we make to form words.

Speech development begins at birth.  Around a child’s first birthday, they begin to use speech sounds to form true words.  However, these first words are often an approximation of the true word as it takes children many years to correctly pronounce all of the sounds in the English language.  This chart lists the ages that we expect children to correctly pronounce the various consonant sounds. As well, all vowels should be correctly pronounced by age 3 years.

When it comes to speech production, there are other areas to consider as well, such as the patterns of sound errors, atypical errors, and how easily a child is understood.  However, understanding the age of acquisition of sounds is a great place to begin.

If you have concerns about your child’s speech development, please contact us at 1-888-623-6363 to speak with a Speech-Language Pathologist.